ON THE OMAGH BOMB
ON THE OMAGH BOMB
THE impact of the August 1998 bomb had a devastating affect on Fr Mullan's ministry in Cappagh. There was however an added dimension for the priest, who grew up just yards from the site of the car bomb. "It happened really just across from where we lived in Omagh, our house is demolished now, but it was there beside Slevin's Chemist. I was glad my mother and father were gone before they saw all that happen on their own doorstep."
Reflecting now on exhaustion of the bomb's aftermath he remembered, "The week of the bomb was very heavy. You didn't really sleep a lot, you were going from one thing to another and on top of that you were dealing with the media."
Cast into the spotlight, he admitted, "It was a very demanding and important week in all of our lives. Everything else stopped. I actually closed the church down for the week. People asked 'Why aren't you there?' I said I needed to be elsewhere, where people were. The church had closed its own doors and taken to the street.
"To try and be the voice of God in some way. that's what the ministers were trying to do, to bring some kind of religious dimension to the whole suffering. It opened up doors into people's lives that would never have been opened, doors that you were able to go through and they're still open."
He continued, "It was just that sense of everyone sharing the tragedy together, the victims and the helpers were all sisters and brothers through the whole thing and that bond is there still."
Almost 13 years on, he reflected, "I devoted ten years trying to help people through the consequences of it and when it came to the tenth anniversary, I just felt with the opening of the memorial garden, it was a place I could leave my memories. They are still deep inside me, but I just had to release myself from constantly thinking about it.
"Part of me says there are those who have forgotten about the bomb and life is just as if it never happened, but for others life will never be the same again. It's now part of history."
THE impact of the August 1998 bomb had a devastating affect on Fr Mullan's ministry in Cappagh. There was however an added dimension for the priest, who grew up just yards from the site of the car bomb. "It happened really just across from where we lived in Omagh, our house is demolished now, but it was there beside Slevin's Chemist. I was glad my mother and father were gone before they saw all that happen on their own doorstep."
Reflecting now on exhaustion of the bomb's aftermath he remembered, "The week of the bomb was very heavy. You didn't really sleep a lot, you were going from one thing to another and on top of that you were dealing with the media."
Cast into the spotlight, he admitted, "It was a very demanding and important week in all of our lives. Everything else stopped. I actually closed the church down for the week. People asked 'Why aren't you there?' I said I needed to be elsewhere, where people were. The church had closed its own doors and taken to the street.
"To try and be the voice of God in some way. that's what the ministers were trying to do, to bring some kind of religious dimension to the whole suffering. It opened up doors into people's lives that would never have been opened, doors that you were able to go through and they're still open."
He continued, "It was just that sense of everyone sharing the tragedy together, the victims and the helpers were all sisters and brothers through the whole thing and that bond is there still."
Almost 13 years on, he reflected, "I devoted ten years trying to help people through the consequences of it and when it came to the tenth anniversary, I just felt with the opening of the memorial garden, it was a place I could leave my memories. They are still deep inside me, but I just had to release myself from constantly thinking about it.
"Part of me says there are those who have forgotten about the bomb and life is just as if it never happened, but for others life will never be the same again. It's now part of history."
Further Information
Publisher: ULSTER HERALD
Ref: UH/2028
Published Date: 26-May-11
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